PrattMWP Alumni Newsletter Summer 2020

Summer 2020/Issue Ten

ALUMNI NEWS

Welcome Our New Dean!

Steven Lee Hansen Named Dean at School of Art Steven Lee Hansen of Edmond, OK, has been named Dean of the School of Art at Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute. He is formerly Dean of the College of Fine Arts and Design, University of Central

Oklahoma. From 1987 to 2017, he chaired the Department of Visual Art, Communication and Design at Andrews University, MI. In his new position, Hansen will serve as the chief administrative officer of the Munson-Williams School of Art division, comprised of PrattMWP College of Art and Design and the Community Arts Education Program.

Hansen succeeds Ken Marchione, who will return to teaching full-time in the program after serving as Interim Dean since 2018.

Munson-Williams President and CEO Anna D’Ambrosio said Hansen was selected following a nationwide search. “We are delighted to bring Steve to the Munson-Williams campus. He is a dedicated, thoughtful professional with terrific positive energy. His academic and artistic achievements, administrative expertise, and positive energy will be an asset to Munson-Williams and to our community.”

Hansen said he is thrilled to join the close-knit arts community at Munson-Williams and work with the faculty who share in the student-centered focus of PrattMWP. “The dedication of faculty, staff and leadership at PrattMWP as well as student achievement and faculty involvement are spectacular,” he said. “I am also eager to participate in community outreach through arts classes and events, working to build and maintain the arts as an integral part of Utica, and Mohawk Valley life. As a lifelong believer in the importance of the arts in creating and maintaining any great culture, the chance to work as part of the Munson-Williams leadership team is intensely gratifying.”

Hansen has authored articles for Ceramics Monthly magazine and his ceramic works have been featured in numerous scholarly journals, books, and exhibition catalogs. He has been represented in exhibitions throughout the United States and in collections at the American Museum of Ceramic Art, University of Iowa Hospital, Fuller Craft Museum, Midwest Museum of American Art, and the Sonny Kamm Collection.

ALUMNUS PROFILE: PATRICK CAREW, 2016 PrattMWP Printmaking and Photography Studio Technician Patrick Carew, born and raised in Utica, became interested in making art at age 10 when he began taking classes at the Munson-Williams School of Art. A change of mind and heart in high school steered his career path away from biology and medical engineering towards art. After being accepted into PrattMWP photography program, he fell in love with the medium and went on to attend Pratt Institute in Brooklyn where he threw himself further into photography and developed a passion for printmaking. He graduated from Pratt Institute in 2018 and lived in New York City for two years, working as a photo assistant and freelance photo printer for artists.

When a position in the photography and printmaking department at PrattMWP became available, he jumped at the chance to work with students and continue to hone and experiment with aspects of his craft.

Can you describe your work?

My work is kind of all over the place in terms of the subject matter. Recently, it deals with a lot of mourning, personal relationships, intimacy, and sexuality. All of my work is one long, continuous project, it just keeps going over the years.

Patrick Carew Self portrait as Ego II

What is the main focus of your work?

It’s a mix of everything. I’ve been working on mainly portraits and still lives and a lot of self-portraits. I have a book that I would like to publish in the works, in a year or so. I have a lot of work being published later this year to coincide with the show.

Do you have any collaborations?

I’ve worked on small zines and photo compilations, but prefer to stick mostly to solo projects. I work better by myself and the photo lab and printmaking areas are in the basement, so it’s perfect.

When did you first get into printmaking, and do you often mix photography and printmaking?

In my sophomore year I took a silkscreen printing class. I loved it because it’s super hands-on. When I was here, it was all digital, it was all working on a computer and working in photoshop. I love photoshop, but being in front of a screen all day drives me crazy.

Printmaking was something physical, tactile and I could work with my hands. I worked with various types of printmaking like copper etching and lithography. When I got to Brooklyn, all of the open electives and classes I could take were printmaking. It’s so technical; you have to do it a certain way, in a certain order, or it won’t work. There aren’t usually jobs open with both creative and technical skill sets. There also aren’t that many people with both skill sets. They don’t intersect that much, so this was the perfect job for me.

Patrick Carew On the Veil, 2019

What draws you to printmaking?

I get the experience of running a print shop. There are a bunch

of ways to combine processes. In screenprinting, you can do a bitmap, sort of like a newspaper and you can print photographic images through a silkscreen. In copper etching or intaglio, I’ve been experimenting with a way to do that cheaply. There is a way to do it, but it’s super intense and it’s basically like getting your doctorate in printmaking so I’ve been experimenting with ways to do that on a cheaper budget and it has been working so far.

See Patrick’s Work

Instagram

Online exhibition

Patrick Carew Leech in Tides, 2019

Patrick Carew Mark I, 2019

Patrick Carew Void, 2019

Q&A WITH SARAH SMITH ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY Sarah Smith, originally from Middletown, NY, is a photographer and educator based in Utica. Previous to her position at PrattMWP, she held positions at Chicago State University, St. Lawrence University, and Murray State University. Recent solo and two-person exhibitions include Where the Great Lakes Leap to the Sea at The Shed Space (Brooklyn, NY) and Fish Hotel at Vanderbilt University (Nashville, TN). Her work has also recently shown at Perspectives Gallery at the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design, Ground Floor Gallery (Nashville, TN), Whitespace Gallery (Atlanta, GA), Roman Susan Gallery (Chicago, IL), Wedge Projects (Chicago, IL). She received her MFA from the University of Iowa and is an active member of the Society for Photographic Sarah Smith Ellen, 2020 pigment inkjet print

Education.

Tell us about your personal artwork.

My personal work explores photography’s inherent relationship with nostalgia and the ways in which a photograph can ask us to look backward while remaining grounded in the present. My work stems from autobiographical experiences but explores an interest in expectations of, and attachment to, personal photographic images that feel more universal. I think about the very invention of photography as proof of an ephemeral existence and the photograph as a failed solution to our uneasiness with mortality. I use my photographs to step back from the persistence of time and view the past, present, and future all in one moment. I often find myself photographing the same things or people over and over again, looking for moments of both narrative and abstraction in my subjects.

How does your work impact the way you teach?

I’m really interested in understanding the photograph as living with an object and not just an image. I think this lends itself to a bigger conversation about photography and its role as fine art medium, commercial platform, and catalyst for political and social commentary.

I ask students to think beyond the image and to take into consideration how that photo goes on to live in the world and also the moments and impetus that led to its creation. My own practice is also very slow and I’ll shoot for a few months at a time before sitting down to look at what I have. I try to instill in my students an appreciation for slowness which is hard to come by in the image-saturated world that we currently live in.

What is your favorite part about working at PrattMWP? I love the diversity among our students and how they are able to bring together such varied experiences in the classroom. It’s a pleasure to work with such a dedicated group of young artists.

What do you hope for PrattMWP Alumni?

For all of my students, I wish them the best as they begin to navigate the art world. I hope that during their time here they built a community of other artists to lean on in the future. Stay in touch and tell us about your successes!

See Sarah’s work

Sarah Smith Water Body, 2015 pigment inkjet print

Class of 2020 Student Work Accepted into National Art Show Devika Kamath, 2020, was recently accepted into a national art show through the Society of Illustrators in New York City.

Artsits in this prestigious exhibition are the winners of the Society of Illustrators annual Student Scholarship Competition showcasing college students’ most sophisticated, well-crafted, and original work. A jury of professional peers, including illustrators and art directors, select the most outstanding works created throughout the academic year. Pieces are accepted based on the quality of technique, concept, and skill of medium used. More than 300 pieces were chosen this year from 7,300 Devika Kamath

entries submitted by professors of college-level illustration and animation students in the United States and Canada. This year, in response to the

COVID-19 pandemic, the Society is featuring all accepted artists and their works within an Online Gallery platform.

Kamath’s accepted piece is a collage of jazz singer Billie Holiday created in Joseph Murphy’s Image as Communication class. The purpose of the assignment was an exploration in understanding value, line, and shape, which are the basic elements of design used to render and communicate the likeness of a figure.

This fall, Kamath will continue working towards a bachelor’s degree in Illustration at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, eventually hoping to work in children’s book illustration.

Devika Kamath An Unexpected Result medium: acrylic texture collage

View the Exhibition Here

Save the Date!

Celebrate PrattMWP’s 20 year affiliation with Pratt Institute with our special 20 Years 20 Artists exhibition, opening on October 1, 2021.

Update your Alumni information here

Join the Alumni Group on LinkedIn here